Youth Work and Beyond

Abstract

Welcome to the Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy! This is the second issue in 2022. In this issue, we have collected six inspiring articles from different Asian cultures: India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Korea. This issue mainly focuses on youth work, family factors and youth behaviours, and other research work involving Asian college students and one indigenous counselling practice. With Covid-19, more young people show a tendency towards psychological problems such as higher level of stress, depression, and anxiety (Liang et al., 2020). In Hong Kong, numerous young people became alienated from daily engagements and from their social life due to the suspension of face-to-face teaching and also due to social distancing and movement restrictions. Many young people have experienced multiple losses, including the loss of financial security, of physical contact with family members and social networks, of jobs, of pre-crisis ways of life and, with these losses, the diminishing of hopes and dreams for the future. In short, the loss of a sense of normalcy has been overwhelming for many (Walsh, 2020). Youth mental health issues have become alarming. Youth, including college students, were reported to have suffered from mental health threats and drops in family-related quality of life due to strong familial conflicts around political views (Shek, 2020). Thus, it is important for helping professionals and researchers to understand and support young people in their own countries and cultures. Understanding the core issues of young people is important before proceeding to offer effective counselling and therapeutic service to them. Besides verbal communication, projective drawing assessment is also a method for understanding more about clients, as it elicits their unconscious thoughts and feelings. It is particularly suitable for those with communication barriers, such as children and juveniles. Prakhar Bajpai, Nandita Chaube, and Abha Sharma employ projective assessment of juveniles’ drawings to investigate the relationship between conduct symptoms and personality. They explore clinical phenomena of juveniles within psychodynamic perspectives, offering insights that are helpful to juvenile counselling workers. Family has a lifelong influence on the growth and development of young people in their adaptation to their changing environments. Adolescence is a crucial stage where teenagers tend to differentiate themselves from their families. Problems in encountering and negotiating with family at this stage may lead to mental health issues. Udena Ruwindu Attygalle explores the themes that may cause deliberate self-harm in adolescents from the perspective of the family life cycle in the context of Sri Lanka. This study helps understand deliberate self-harm among adolescents in Sri Lanka through the lens of family perspectives. ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 2022, VOL. 13, NO. 2, 101–103 https://doi.org/10.1080/21507686.2022.2108570